Responses and reviews, criticism and critique at SF Novelists

Responses and reviews, criticism and critique at SF Novelists:

"To my eye, those bemoaning the “shallowness” of Internet reviews are missing an important point.

I see four general kinds of commentary on books, each of which has a different audience and a different purpose.

First are the responses, which I think many of those bemoaning the current trend (erroneously) try to interpret as reviews. A response is just one reader’s personal reaction to the book, without much attempt at context. This can be positive or negative, short or long, anything from “Meh. I couldn’t get into it.” to a thousand words on how much the reader adores the protagonist. Their purpose is simply to share, and as such, their best audience is often other people who have also read the book. After all, your reaction doesn’t mean much to me if I don’t know the thing you’re reacting to."

Must remember re-read this article every once in a while.